The restrictive nature of many Afghani laws and customs has often led critics to refer to the home as a prison for Afghani women. But now these women face something even worse: actual prison.

As many as half of the women prisoners in Afghanistan have been convicted of “moral crimes.” These crimes include such acts as refusing to marry, attempted adultery, and running away from home.

Mastura, age 19, was three months pregnant when her husband claimed her unborn child was not his and kicked her out of their home. She was picked up by the police, and she and her new infant son currently live in prison. She reflects that “every time I think about it, I cry, and I say to myself, ‘What crime have I committed that I should be in prison?’” About 40 other young children also live with their mothers in the prison. They are taken from their mothers at age five and sent to a boarding school, according to prison authorities.

One sixteen-year old girl named Sabera recalls that she was about to become engaged, and her fiancé-to-be came by himself to ask her for her hand before having his parents visit her. A neighbor spotted them together and called the police, resulting in Sabera being sentenced to three years in prison. Her sentence has since been shortened to 18 months as “an act of mercy.” She will spend this time sitting in prison instead of attending school.

Many women are imprisoned for attempting to run away from homes in which they are abused, and they may be detained for months before their stories are checked and they are released. There is no legal provision that defines “running away,” so police operate off of their own interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.

The one consolation for these women’s misfortunes is that they are no longer kept in the same prisons as male convicts. Instead, they reside in Badam Bagh, a brand-new facility built as a response to concern about the number of rape incidences occurring in the co-ed prisons.  However, improved living conditions do not justify the fact that many innocent women still lose years of their lives in jail. Zarafshana, the director of Badam Bagh, sums up the plight of her charges, saying, “if these women were treated with justice, I don’t think 50% of them would be in here. They are here because of problems in the family or personal vendettas.”

For more information, see the complete BBC article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8771605.stm